Category: Wealth

Unemployment, minimum wage, and the collapse of work are big topics in the news right now. Personal responsibility and accountability are notably absent from much of the conversation.
At the John William Pope Foundation, we understand the importance of helping the poor, particularly with an eye towards helping them become active parts of the free-enterprise economy.
Along those lines, we encourage you to attend an upcoming event sponsored by the Philanthropy Roundtable titled "Getting America Back to Work," which will be held April 9 in Houston, Texas. During the event, they will explore philanthropic strategies to help economically marginalized individuals become employable, find work, and build economic stability:
As concerns about poverty and economic mobility mount, one thing stands clear: Work provides the earned income that alleviates a host of poverty-related problems. Yet the unemployment numbers and welfare statistics suggest that it's not always simple to join the...

The Manhattan Institute's James Piereson uses his Wall Street Journal column today to dispel a few myths surrounding the wealthiest 1 percent in the United States.
To judge by media reports, most Americans would assume that the wealthiest 1 percent are found mainly in the financial sector and reap most of their income from capital gains.
But Piereson writes that "1 percenters" consist "primarily of salaried executives at nonfinancial businesses (30%) and secondarily of doctors (14%), people working in finance (13%) and lawyers (8%). Among the 'super rich' in the top 0.1% (about 110,000 households), the distribution still favors business executives (41%) over people in finance (18%)."
These wealthiest Americans depend heavily on salaries, not capital gains:
In 2010 the top 1% earned 36% of their incomes from salaries and wages (what the CBO calls labor income), 22% from businesses, farms and partnerships, and just 19% from capital gains. The majority of their income would...